Odds are, if you're a girl and you've been through a breakup, you've used social media as a tool to try to convince your ex that they screwed up, that you're hot and that you're fine without them. So when my best friend's boyfriend of two years broke up with her, I knew that she would want me to help her play that social media game. We went to cool places to make Snapchat stories (with the geotags of course) to show him that she was fine and was having fun without him. I came over to her house so we could get our hair and makeup done in order to have a photo shoot for her Instagram. Countless pictures were taken, with me giving tips like "your butt looks good in that pose, but move your arm it looks weird;" "this one is really cute but you blinked, let's try to recreate it;" "wait, the lighting looks better over here, let's try all of these again;" until the perfect grammable picture was taken (disclaimer: they did actually get back together a few days after the picture was posted, but I doubt it was because of my photography skills).
While playing this social media game with her, I realized that pretty much all social media interactions have the same intentions in mind. Of course not every picture posted on Instagram and Snapchat is trying to make someone jealous after a breakup, but there is one common trait: everyone wants to look good. It is in our society's nature to want to show off how beautiful we feel, the accomplishments we are proud of and the amazing places we travel to, and we accomplish this through social media.
I am not saying that this is a bad thing. You should be proud of what you're doing and how you look and want to share it with the people that you love. However, it is important to remember that just like you, everyone you see on your Snapchat stories, Instagram feed, and twitter are trying to romanticize their lives just a little bit. Social media is the enhanced version of everyone's lives. We only share what we are proud of, so someone's Instagram page does not represent who they are as a whole. Just because someone you know only posts pictures of beaches and cocktail parties does not mean that they don't have any rough stuff going on in their life, and just because you see an Instagram model posting gorgeous pictures does not mean you should feel any less about your own appearance, because even Instagram models spend a lot of time and effort perfecting their poses in photos to show off their most glamorous sides. Just google Essena O'Neil, who changed all of her captions on Instagram to ones that revealed the truth behind the photos.
It is important to remember that romanticized photos on social media are not the most important things in life—the moments that are being romanticized are. Look past the pictures and think about how confident that person felt in that bikini picture, how fun those people were having at a party even if it was a posed candid, how excited that person was to backpack through Europe and how proud that person felt landing their dream internship, because that is what makes the true beauty of the photo. Not the filters.
